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It's been a long time coming, but it's finally here: the Tanking, Healing, and Offline Gold Update!

Many of these changes were discussed during Monday's Tanking & Healing Dev Blog. However, there are far more details below for anyone interested in digging in!

Note: the full list of changes is included in the in-game Change Log.

I. Features

This update includes major changes to champion health, healing amounts, and monster damage. See the balance changes section for more details.

Added new upgrades for all champions up to approximately e49 gold spent.

The front-end now checks for invalid/no longer valid upgrades when loading champion data from the server. It will also purchase all unbought upgrades up to your champions' current level on load. This is to ensure that all new/changed upgrades are immediately available and to fix an edge case where you could miss out on upgrades by switching to the gamepad UI without having purchased earlier ones.

Shield amounts are now shown on the character sheet.

Shift clicking the area selector's left arrow goes to the first 5 areas. Shift clicking the area selector's right arrow goes to the highest unlocked area.

Gamepad UI has been massively improved (Still in BETA)

Hotkey F to show familiar slots. Clicking a slot with F held will assign an available familiar to that slot. Clicking the familiar button with F held will unassign all familiars. (Steam only)

II. Balance Changes

Monsters in all campaigns now only increase their damage when the adventure story resets (eg. in areas 51, 101, 151, etc.); Monster damage is increased by 75% at each of these breakpoints.

Champions' base health values have been completely rebalanced. Champions have been divided into four general categories: squishy, tanky non-tank, general tank, and durable tank. The Champion's category, plus the champions' con score, armor class, and bench slot, now determine each Champions' base health.

Champions' health no longer increases as you level them up, only from upgrades, formation abilities, or other buffs.

We've created a new outgoing Global DPS/Formation Ability curve that maps total gold spent on a hero to their relative Global/FA buff amounts. We've applied this curve to the Champions that have been rebalanced in this update, and will apply it to all other Champions in a future balance pass. In general this will result in a decent increase to the buffing ability of Champions in later seats and a small nerf to the buffing ability of Champions in earlier seats.

Champions will now get an "overwhelmed" debuff when more than 15 enemies are attacking them (using the same definition of "attacking them" as other effects). The debuff causes them to take 10% more damage from monsters for each enemy attacking them above 15 (10% at 16 attackers, 100% at 25 attackers, 200% at 35 attackers, 250% at 40 attackers, 850% at 100 attackers, etc.). Some champions have abilities that increase the starting point or decrease the debuff. This debuff shows up as a FA icon on champions who are being overwhelmed.

We've updated the formula that calculates your party DPS to be much more accurate, taking into effect things like Minsc's favored enemy, Barrowin's hammers, and Regis' damage type bonuses. This has resulted in ultimate abilities getting a healthy damage boost.

Additional, as a result of the party DPS formula changes, offline gold, gold found in silver chests, gold from distractions, and gold from bounty contracts should now be more in line with gold earned while actively playing.

Monsters and bosses now enrage slower and ramp up their damage bonus slower; effects that increase based on # of monsters attacking also ramp up along with enrage bonuses.

We've done a pass through several adventures looking for monsters that are broken/OP/UP under the new champion health values. We may have missed some, so let us know if something seems unfair or underpowered!

The Chained Up Ogre now attacks from slightly further away and does 40% more damage than other bosses.

Monsters that attack with Fireball do 20% more damage than other monsters.

Monsters that attack from range now do damage that is more comparable with melee monsters.

Reduced the damage of the Lich and Father Kendra bosses.

The Stone Juggernaut now attacks from further away and does less damage.

Celeste

Not much change to Celeste. We reworked her healing numbers to match the new tanking/healing curves and reduced the difference in healing/buffing between her two specializations so they can both be used depending on whether you need just a bit more damage or just a bit more healing (this brings her general design closer to more recent heroes, whose specializations have a smaller impact on their overall power).

Mass Cure Wounds base healing amount reduced from 10 to 3 (6 with the Life Domain specialization; improved by gear -- see below).

Reduced the base values of Celeste's healing loot from 25/87.5/150/275% to 10/30/50/100%.

Reworked all of Celeste's upgrades that improved Mass Cure Wounds. Removed about 20 and re-positioned the remaining 6 among her levels up to 950.

All upgrades to Crusader's Mantle no longer require the War Domain specialization, meaning that between the two specs Crusader's Mantle's total value is much closer (just x2 from Life Domain to War Domain).

Removed some of the global DPS upgrades that were associated with Life Domain and overlapped with War Domain spec upgrades.

Celeste's healing achievement now requires only 20e6 health healed, down from 1e9, but it now only tracks effective healing and not wasted healing. The achievement has been reset for all players, but those of you who completed the old achievement will find it in the Legacy Achievements category.

Nayeli

We're pretty happy with how Nayeli works as a tank. We simply reworked her health to match the new tanking/healing curve and reduced the difference in buffing/tanking between her two specializations so they can both be used depending on whether you need Nayeli to buff a bit more or take a few more hits before dying (this brings her general design closer to more recent heroes, whose specializations have a smaller impact on their overall power). We also added a new tank-specific formation ability to Nayeli to help her protect the group against AOE damage in later areas.

Oath of Devotion now increases Nayeli's health by 70, down from 300,000; it also moves her from a low end General Tank to a Durable Tank, providing at least 50% more health on average with her subsequent health increases.

Replaced all health increasing upgrades and moved them around. There are now less health upgrades and they increase Nayeli's health by less. Nayeli also now receives health upgrades regardless of her spec, however she receives smaller upgrades with Oath of Vengeance compared to Oath of Devotion.

All of the upgrades to Aura of Courage no longer require the Oath of Vengeance specialization, meaning that between the two specs Aura of Courage's total value is much closer (just x2 from Oath of Devotion to Oath of Vengeance).

We have removed Nayeli's taunt upgrade. We like the general idea of the taunt and may add it back in a future balance update.

Reduced the base values of Nayeli's health increasing gear from 25/87.5/150/275% to 10/30/50/100%.

Nayeli's attack cooldown has been reduced to 6.7 seconds from 8 seconds.

Nayeli's STR and CON stats have both been improved to 16 (from 15 and 13 respectively).

Reduced the effect of Nayeli's level 55 global DPS upgrade from 200% to 100%, but added a completely new 100% global DPS upgrade at level 550 to compensate. Overall this bring's Nayeli's buffing ability in line with other support champions.

Aura of Protection now also stacks when enemies or bosses begin to enrage. It counts each enrage increase as one additional attacking enemy.

Added an upgrade at level 280 with Oath of Devotion spec that increases the max health of all other Champions in the formation by a 25% of Nayeli's max health. This includes other tanks (4 tanks in formation ~= tank-health level squishies and double-health tanks).

Nayeli's tanking achievement now only requires 40e6 damage taken, down from 1e12. The achievement has been reset for all players, but those of you who completed the old achievement will find it in the Legacy Achievements category.

Calliope

Calliope's shields are quite powerful at delaying the death of tanks, especially under the new tanking/healing curves. As such, when a Champion is shielded by Calliope there is now a 15 second cooldown before they can be affected by her shield again. Calliope's ultimate overrides this limitation, and the shields still last until they are broken. College of Lore, instead of increasing the amount of her shields, now decreases the new cooldown by 5 seconds to 10 seconds total, meaning you can shield more often. The difference in subsequent upgrades between College of Valor and College of Lore has been removed, so that the two specializations are simply a choice between more frequent shields or slightly higher Bardic Inspiration buffs (this brings her general design closer to more recent heroes, whose specializations have a smaller impact on their overall power). Calliope emerges as a decent death delayer, and one of the few healer-types who can protect the majority of the formation from incidental damage.

Song of Protection base value is now 100, down from 250.

Replaced all upgrades to Song of Protection and moved them around. There are now far less upgrades and they all increase Song of Protection by much less. Removed approximately 18 upgrades and the remaining 6 have been distributed among Calliope's levels up to 1030.

All upgrades that previous only unlocked if you chose the College of Valor specialization now unlock under College of Lore as well. Two upgrades that you previously only got under College of Lore have been removed.

Calliope's "bracers" loot items (increase Song of Protection amount) have had their base values reduced from 25/87.5/150/275% to 10/30/50/100%.

Fixed a bug where Song of the Protection's base value was being doubled when applied via her ultimate.

Calliope's "bag" loot items now increases her ultimate damage, instead of further increasing the Song of Protection amount.

Calliope's shield now has a 15 second cooldown before it can be applied to the same Champion again. She tries to cast it every 1 second.

Calliope's College of Lore specialization now decreases the cooldown of Calliope's shield by 5 seconds (to 10 seconds total).

Calliope's shielding achievement now only requires 60e6 damage shielded, down from 1e27. The achievement has been reset for all players, but those of you who completed the old achievement (hah! not likely!) will find it in the Legacy Achievements category.

Tyril

Tyril's original Wild Shape design had him creating big damage shields for himself with his ultimate, allowing him to survive much longer than he otherwise would have. This design has been refined in the rework. His ultimate attack now does AOE damage, and the shield it generates is a percentage of his max health times the number of enemies he hit, with bonuses for enemies killed. Time his ultimate correctly and he can create a shield that will allow him to tank for an extended period of time. We've of course adjusted his health increases to match the new tanking/healing curve, though he'll only gain tank-level health in Wild Shape spec. Tyril is essentially two completely different champions, depending on the spec you pick, so we've thrown some love at his Moonbeam spec as well and changed the way Moonbeam scales based on adjacent Champions. Moonbeam also has more, larger upgrades, making Tyril more competitive with Barrowin in more situations. His Moonbeam spec heal has also been rebalanced to match the new tanking/healing curves. Finally, Tyril's new "Forces of Good" ability ramps up the damage of your "Good" champions when he's under attack or the enemies are enraging.

Wild Shape now increases Tyril's health by 265 (down from millions).

Wild Resistance now only decreases damage taken by 10 (down from millions). It cannot reduce damage below 25% of the initial damage (up from 5%).

Upgrades that affected Tyril's max health (Wild Shape only), Druidic Healing (Moonbeam only), and Wild Resilience (Wild Shape only) amounts have been rebalanced to the new tanking/healing curve. Approximately 24 upgrades were removed, and the other 13 were redistributed and rebalanced.

Tyril's base attack cooldown in human form has been lowered to 4.7 seconds. It remains at 6.2 seconds in bear form.

Increased Tyril's first global dps upgrade to give him an early game boost, added another 100% global dps upgrade at level 1000, and added and boosted several other upgrades for Moonbeam; Tyril's buffing ability now matches that of other buffers based on his total invested gold.

Tyril's Wild Shape increases his "overwhelmed" starting point to 25.

Moonbeam is now reduced by 0% for having 1 adjacent champion, 10% for 2 adjacents, 40% for 3 adjacents, 70% for 4 adjacents, and 90% for 5 or more adjacents.

Tyril's ultimate attack with his Wild Shape spec (Shielding Bite) now does AOE damage in a small radius. After his attack, he creates a shield that is his max health times the number of enemies hit. Enemies that were killed by the attack count for triple. So for example, if his bite hits 10 enemies but only kills 2, he gains a shield that is his max health x14 (8x1 + 2x3). Note this shield still degrades by 1% of its original value per second, meaning that it expires after 100 seconds at the latest. The shield continues to degrade even if Tyril is benched, but doesn't degrade while changing areas/watching cinematics. If you use his ultimate again before the previous ultimate shield expires, the new shield overrides the previous shield completely, unless it would generate a smaller shield than what Tyril has remaining from the old one.

Tyril's "Shielding Fury" achievement has been restructured. Now requires Tyril to create a shield greater than 50x his max health. The achievement has been reset for all players, but those of you who completed the old achievement will find it in the Legacy Achievements category.

Tyril's equipment has been adjusted. Slot 1 has been changed from Self DPS loot into max health increasing loot (10/30/50/100). Slot 2 has been changed from Self DPS loot to Global DPS loot. Slot 4 has been changed from Buff Moonbeam/Wild Shape to Buff Moonbeam/Wild Inspiration (both formation buffs). Slots 3, 5, and 6 are unchanged in this balance pass.

Added a new buff that unlocks if you choose the Wild Shape specialization. "Wild Inspiration" increases the damage of all Champions within 2 slots of Tyril by X%. It is much less of a buff than a well-placed Moonbeam, but still enough to make Tyril a decent buffer while tanking, assuming you can lay out your formation correctly. Various upgrades have been added to Tyril's upgrade tree to buff this ability.

Added a new formation ability called "Forces of Good" that increases the damage of all "Good" champions in the formation for each enemy attacking Tyril (and/or each boss/monster enrage stack active). This FA is only available when you choose Tyril's Wild Shape spec.

Added an upgrade to Tyril's Wild Shape spec that increases the max health of all other Champions in the formation by a 25% of Tyril's max health. This includes other tanks (4 tanks in formation ~= tank-health level squishies and double-health tanks).

Arkhan

We wanted to use this opportunity to completely redesign Arkhan, morphing him into the bad-ass group-leading force of nature that he is in his tabletop appearances, and always was intended to be in our game. To that end, we've redesigned him with the idea of a "Tank DPS" in mind. We've removed nearly all of his existing abilities ("First in Line", "Loyalty", "Chango Unchained", "Chango Restrained") and replaced them with new ones. With "Rage of the Dragonborn," Arkhan's damage ramps up drastically when more enemies are attacking him by changing his attack to hit more and more enemies -- for example, Flame Breath becomes his basic attack when 16 or more enemies are targeting him! Through his brand new specializations, Arkhan's damage is increased in ways that no other Champions' are. "Bulk Up" increases the effect of formation abilities that target him, and "Usurped Power" causes positional formation abilities that target champions adjacent to Arkhan to *also* target him, regardless of their normal restrictions. A new formation ability called "Rising Anger" increases the damage of evil champions when Arkhan is under attack (go go Krond!). Finally, we've adjusted Arkhan's gear to better suit his new build, including giving him the game's very first Gold Find loot item. We hope that with these changes, Arkhan could conceivably be used to build some very interesting formations.

Arkhan's level cost curve has been reduced from 68% per level to 28% per level. This gives us more levels to work with for the same gold cost.

Removed the First in Line and Loyalty formation abilities/upgrades, along with the Chango Unchained/Restrained specializations. Also removed Arkhan's gold increasing upgrades (but don't worry, his new equipment more than makes up for it).

Reworked Arkhan's health increasing upgrades to match the new tanking/healing curves. Also added some additional upgrades that increase Arkhan's health at higher levels. These increases are all independent of your specialization choice, so Arkhan is always super tanky.

Arkhan's "overwhelmed" starting point is 25, instead of 15.

Added an upgrade to Arkhan's tank spec that increases the max health of all other Champions in the formation by a 25% of Arkhan's max health. This includes other tanks (4 tanks in formation ~= tank-health level squishies and double-health tanks).

Added a new upgrade called "Rage of the Dragonborn". When Arkhan attacks, his attack is based on how many enemies are currently attacking him. With 0-5 enemies attacking, he does his normal single target swing. With 6-15 enemies attacking, he does a small cleave with each attack, and his attack damage modifier is increased (5x modifier). With 16+ enemies attacking, he does a massively damaging flame breath attack (20x modifier).

Rage of the Dragonborn also stacks when enemies or bosses begin to enrage. It counts each enrage increase as one additional attacking enemy.

Arkhan's specializations have been completely reworked. You now choose between the following specs: "Bulk Up: All formation buffs Arkhan receives are increased by X% if he's in the front column of the formation" or "Usurped Power: When in the front column of the formation Arkhan now receives any positional formation buffs that are received by those adjacent to him at X% efficiency, even if he doesn't meet the positional requirements. (Doesn't apply the same FA twice if he already gets it)."

Arkhan's Flame Breath ultimate attack has been removed; he now unlocks Chango Unchained regardless of specialization.

Arkhan's personal achievement now requires that he attack with Flame Breath 10,000 times. Since his ultimate has changed, this means he must attack with Rage of the Dragonborn while tanking 16+ enemies X times in order to earn the achievement. The achievement has been reset for all players, but those of you who completed the old achievement will find it in the Legacy Achievements category.

Added a new formation ability called "Rising Anger" that increases the damage of all "Evil" champions in the formation for each enemy attacking Arkhan (and/or each boss/monster enrage stack active). This FA is available in all specs.

We've made some changes to Arkhan's loot to match his new build. His Global DPS item in slot two is now Self DPS. His third slot item now increases global gold find instead of the defunct First in Line FA, and his fourth item increases the effectiveness of his specializations.

Gromma

We like the *idea* of Gromma, she just needed some tweaking to get her numbers right. With her tough tortle shell, she's tanky no matter which spec you pick, so she can fulfill the role of front-line support if the adventure or variant calls for it. We've pumped up her Grandmotherly Love ability to the extreme, so if your DPS is on the young-end of the spectrum, she's definitely worth considering for a buffing slot in your formation. We've also looked at each of her specializations and made some tweaks to each, focusing on her Tanking, Support, and DPS ability for Circle of the Mountain, Arctic, and Swamp respectively. Her tanking kit has been redesigned, with a completely new "Spiked Shell" mechanic, as well as other new formation abilities for buffing the party's health and the damage of neutral champions while Gromma is under attack. We also threw a new formation ability into her Circle of the Swamp spec so that she can benefit from a portion of her Grandmotherly Love ability.

Added numerous upgrades to Grandmotherly Love and Global DPS, bringing Gromma's buffing ability up out of the doghouse and into a respectable range.

Removed a number of the odd discrepancies in Gromma's upgrade tree that were based on her specialization. Aside from buffs to her specialization-specific abilities, her upgrades should be more uniform across her three specs.

Added health increasing upgrades to Gromma to match the new healing/tanking curve. These upgrades exist independent of her tanking specialization.

Gromma's outgoing global and formation buffs have been matched to a new target curve. Other champions will be adjusted to this new curve during a future balance pass.

Gromma's base attack cooldown increased to 6.9 seconds from 4.6 seconds. If you specialize Circle of the Swap her Melf's Acid Arrow attack has the original 4.6 second cooldown with a +50% dps modifier so that the attack damage remains the same.

Added an upgrade to Gromma's tank spec that increases the max health of all other Champions in the formation by a 25% of Gromma's max health. This includes other tanks (4 tanks in formation ~= tank-health level squishies and double-health tanks).

Gromma's Hardened Shell upgrade now decreases the effect of the "overwhelmed" debuff system by 25%.

The Spiked Shell upgrade (Circle of the Mountain spec 2nd ability) has been reworked. Now instead of taking a percentage of Gromma's damage, enemies that attack Gromma are debuffed by a "Pierced Armor" effect. This effect can stack up to 25 times, and by default causes enemies to take 100% more damage per stack (stacking additively). This makes enemies squishier and squishier the more then attack Gromma, making them easier for your other Champions to defeat.

Freezing breath (Circle of the Arctic spec 2nd ability) has been substantially buffed. The base effect now increases damage monsters affected by Sleet Storm take by 400%, up from 25%. Further upgrades to this ability ramp up the bonus damage even more.

Acid Splash (Circle of the Swamp spec 2nd ability) has been buffed from 25% to 100%. Buffs to it have been removed.

Gromma's Circle of the Swamp specialization will receive additional dps buffs compared to her other spec, making it a viable DPS spec in the right circumstances. If you choose this specialization, Gromma will also learn a new FA called "Love Thyself" that increases her damage by 75% of her maximum Grandmotherly Love buff.

Added a new formation ability called "Shades of Gray" that increases the damage of all "Neutral" champions (lawful, true, and chaotic; doesn't include neutral good or neutral evil) in the formation for each enemy attacking Gromma (and/or each boss/monster enrage stack active). This FA is only available when you choose Gromma's Circle of the Mountain spec.

Barrowin

Barrowin's reign of terror over other buffing champions is finally over. It was good while it lasted, but if you live by the hammer, you die by the hammer, and the nerf hammer has brought Barrowin's buffing ability back in line with other Champions. Blessed Hammer has had the way hammers stack adjusted. Instead of stacking multiplicatively with each other, each additional hammer provides a flat multiplier to the blessing: 1x for 1 hammer, 3x for 2 hammers, 7x for 3 hammers, and 15x for 4 hammers. This still provides for a 230,000%+ buff with 4 hammers at max level and with decent gear, but it's a far cry from the game breaking 1e15% buffs that the ability was providing before. To make up for the nerf, Barrowin's attack speed has been slightly lowered, increasing your chance to get an extra hammer stack once in a while, but in general her ability to buff has been brought more in line with other Champions in her seat. With her increased survivability when she's in the tank link, Barrowin is an excellent healing choice for formations with multiple front-line slots and a cluttered 2nd column. Her ultimate has also been redesigned to give your formation a quick boost of power and survivability whenever you desire.

Barrowin's base attack speed has been lowered to 4.1 from 4.4 seconds.

Reduced the base effect of Healing Word to better match the new health/healing curves.

Upgrades to Healing Word have been rebalanced. Removed approximately 8 upgrades and distributed the remaining 5 among Barrowin's level curve.

Added a new FA ("Divine Aid") at level 210 that increases Barrowin's max health by 50% of the max health of the Champion in her column with the highest max health. This can count Barrowin herself, so if there are no other Champions in the column, or all Champions in her column have a lower max health than her, she increases her max health by 50% of her own max health. This effect also increases her "overwhelmed" point to 25.

Added a new FA ("Even Temper") at level 325 that increases Barrowin's attack speed by 1 sec whenever she has been attacked in the last 8.2 seconds.

Blessed Hammer's stacking is no longer purely multiplicative. Instead, each hammer provides a flat multiplier to the base buff amount: 1x for 1 hammer, 3x for 2 hammers, 7x for 3 hammers, and 15x for 4 hammers. Additionally several upgrades have been spread out across Barrowin's levels more evenly. All in all, the ability should be as good as comparable support champions with equal gear at 2 hammers, slightly worse at 1 hammer, and still best in class at 3+ hammers.

Barrowin's ultimate has been reconfigured. She throws her hammer at a random enemy, stunning it for 5 seconds. This also instantly sets all adjacent champions to *6* hammer stacks (the 5th stack adds another 16x and the 6th another 32x, for a total buff 63x the "base" Blessed Hammer amount; these stacks override any existing stacks) and a 10x normal health shield to all champions in her column.

Barrowin's shielding achievement has been changed to a healing achievement. Requiring 120e6 damage healed, down from 1e22 damage shielded. This must be effective healing, not just any healing ticks. The achievement has been reset for all players, but those of you who completed the old achievement will find it in the Legacy Achievements category.

Evelyn

Evelyn didn't require much maintenance. She's intended to be squishier than Nayeli or the other buffer tanks, but with more buffing potential. We added health upgrades to keep her in line with the new health/healing curve, and adjusted her upgrades to improve the scaling of her Divine Prayer buff effects.

Added health increasing upgrades to Evelyn to match the new healing/tanking curve.

Buffed Evelyn's Global DPS upgrades, and added another one near max level. Adjusted her upgrades to Divine Prayer as well to get her on-par with other tanking buffers.

Added an upgrade that increases the max health of all other Champions in the formation by a 25% of Evelyn's max health. This includes other tanks (4 tanks in formation ~= tank-health level squishies and double-health tanks).

Steadfast Might now also stacks when enemies or bosses begin to enrage. It counts each enrage increase as one additional attacking enemy.

Evelyn's axe gear (slot 1) is now global DPS instead of self DPS.

Donaar

Donaar was designed after most of the tanking and healing update was laid out, so his changes are minimal. Mostly just tweaks to his healing values to bring him in line with the new health curve.

Donaar's healing ability has been rebalanced in line with the new health curve. This has resulted in several upgrades being removed, and several being heavily nerfed.

Reduced the base values of Donaar's healing loot from 25/87.5/150/275% to 10/30/50/100%.

IV. Changes

Potions of Heroism (health potions) have been added back into chests. The effects have been reduced to 50%, 100%, 200%, and 300%, due to the change in the health scaling curve.

Bosses now spawn in lower 2/3rds of spawn area so tall bosses are less hidden.

Added equipment shininess border to the champion info menu.

Added buttons to inventory sliders to allows single increments and decrements.

Added mouse wheel support for sliders.

V. Fixes

Fixed the description of the number of eyeballs bobbing in the Large Potion of Clairvoyance.

Familiar count text now always remains on one line.

Fixed a bug where Azaka's Weretiger progress bar would disappear.

Fixed a bug where the Chief Yorb boss monster could be plane-shifted away by Vlahnya's Ultimate, rendering the level un-completable.

Fixed event dialog boxes being in the wrong spots when graphics are not yet loaded.

Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms, Coming to PlayStation®4 and Xbox One

We are delighted to announce the launch dates of Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One this December! If you own a PS4, be sure to check the PlayStation Store on Tuesday 11th December when the game will be available. XB1 owners will be able to install the game on Friday 14th December.

At launch, players will be able to buy a Founder's Pack we've created to celebrate the launch of Idle Champions on both consoles. This awesome new package contains a serious amount of cool content that will enable players to kick off their campaigns in style. But don’t worry - this new pack won’t be console-exclusive! That’s right: the Founders Pack will be available across all platforms, so even if you don't have a PS4 or XB1, you won't miss out!

The launch of Idle Champions on PS4 and XB1 also debuts a significant design update that we're extremely proud of. The game's user interface has been completely redesigned from the ground up to work with console controllers, and we think players will agree that it is a great new look for the game.

Founders Pack

In honor of the launch of Idle Champions on PS4 and XB1, we have created a brand new Founder's Pack to help you kick off your adventure! The Founder's Pack is full of exclusive goodies at an awesome discount!

* Iris the Beholder familiar will be available once you reach area 66 in any adventure.

Celebration Week

Our final new big update is that starting on December 14th, we'll be celebrating the launch on Console with a week of in-game freebies on all platforms! That's right, whether you play on PS4, Xbox, PC, iPad or Android tablet, you'll be able to come back for daily rewards during an epic event all week long. All you have to do is log in and play every day to pick up a console celebration chest which has four unique items selected by the Idle Champions team! Collect 4 of the chests to unlock an additional five Gold Chests, and a free Golden Epic card for Joe Manganiello's Arkhan the Cruel!

Mark your calendars! We are very excited to welcome even more fans to the Idle Champions' family.

Hey everyone, Justin from the Codename Entertainment development team here. Today I'm going to talk about something that has been a long time in the making.

I. What's Going On?

It's finally time! The long awaited tanking and healing update -- or as the community has lovingly nicknamed it, the "Shielding, Healing, and Tanking (SH&T)" update -- is almost here. This update includes changes to tanks, healers, and monsters, and is designed to provide more interesting and varied choices for dealing with the inevitable mob of monsters that constantly attacks your formation.

TL/DR: — I've decided to put the TLDR at the top of this post, since it is quite extensive. When we began to talk about this patch in earnest, we've seen quite a bit of concern about this patch changing the game completely, but in reality the changes are focused primarily on the part of the game near "your wall" -- the point at which enemies start to reach your formation on a regular basis. Prior to that point in gameplay the effects you'll feel from this update will be fairly minor. At your wall, in general, Champions won't be able to take as many hits, but if properly spec'd and healed they can pull you a few extra areas further than if they weren't there. This update also includes improved offline gold, ultimate damage, and upgrades for a soft cap increase up to approximately e49 gold.

We are aiming to have this update released this week, though as always unforeseen issues have the potential to delay it, so don't bet the farm on it.

II. Champion Health & Monster Damage

One of the biggest issues this update addresses is the disparity between Champion health and monster damage, especially in higher areas. Prior to the update, Champion health very quickly outpaces monster damage, resulting in even the squishiest of Champions being able to tank high level enemies for far longer than they should.

After the update, Champion health has been completely rebalanced. It starts lower and no longer increases with each level-up. Tanking Champions gain health through upgrades, and non-tanking Champions can gain additional health through new formation abilities that tanking Champions get. Monster damage also only increases when the adventure story resets (in areas 51, 101, 151, etc.), meaning each time you go through you need more tanking and healing power (in addition to damage) to keep up. In general, the curves are a lot shallower, so Champions have less health but monsters do less damage as well. This has resulted in your DPS being the much more important metric for if you can or cannot go further.

Minor tidbits:

Healing and shielding abilities have been adjusted to match the new lower health values.

Loot items that affected health, healing, or shields have also been adjusted.

Health potions (Potions of Heroism) have also been added back to the pool of possible chest contents.

III. Overwhelming Attacks

A key tenant of this update is that tanking Champions should be able to stand fast against a small number of enemies without any issues, assuming they're getting some healing, but against overwhelming force you'll need some hefty tanks and healing. A new mechanic, "Overwhelming Attacks," causes Champions to take more damage when they begin to be overwhelmed by enemies. For most Champions, they can handle up to 15 enemies without any issue, but some tankier Champions have a higher break-point.

IV. Offline Gold & Party/Ultimate Damage

We've updated two of our primary algorithms: Party Damage and Offline Gold.

For Party Damage, the damage number displayed in the top-left corner of the game has been updated to take more effects into account, including things like Barrowin Hammers, Minsc's Favored Enemies, Champions with cleave and AOE attacks, and so on. This has resulted in a more accurate representation of party damage, which has translated into an increase in Ultimate Attack damage across the board, since Ultimate damage is based on party damage. The days when your base attacks do more damage than ultimate abilities are (hopefully) in the past.

The other change is to Offline Gold. The new algorithm also accounts for all of the same things the party damage does, resulting in a more accurate gold per second estimation. This has resulted in increased gold from offline time, bounty contracts, silver chests, and distractions. We will continue to monitor these numbers and make further tweaks as necessary.

Other Minor Changes:

The enrage mechanic for bosses has been rebalanced so that damage ramps up more slowly.

Abilities that power-up based on the number of enemies attacking also increase based on enemy enrage stacks.

The game now automatically buys non purchased upgrades on load. This fixes a couple of edge cases with the Gamepad UI.

Speaking of which, the Gamepad UI will be updated with new graphics and tweaks in this update.

We've rebalanced the buffing multiplier curve and applied the new curve to all the tanking and healing Champions affected by this update. The curve will be applied to everyone else over time (the largest impact will come with next year's major balance update). In general this will result in a softening of the buffing ability for Champions in earlier bench seats, and an increase in the buffing capability of Champions in later bench seats, however only a few Champions have been changed at this point.

We've added new upgrades for all Champions up to approximately e49 gold.

We've made minor tweaks to some monsters and encounters to make them work better in a post tanking & healing update world.

V. Champion Updates

We've taken this opportunity to rebalance all tanks and healers currently in the game. This includes the Base Champions Celeste, Nayeli, Calliope, Tyril, and Arkhan, as well as the Event Champions Gromma, Barrowin, Evelyn, and Donaar. Some of these Champions have received only minor tweaks, while others (like Arkhan and Barrowin) have received more significant reworks. A summary of the changes are listed below. The full details will be included in the change log for this update.

Base Champion Updates

Celeste

Not much change to Celeste. We reworked her healing numbers to match the new tanking/healing curves and reduced the difference in healing/buffing between her two specializations so they can both be used depending on whether you need just a bit more damage or just a bit more healing (this brings her general design closer to more recent heroes, whose specializations have a smaller impact on their overall power).

Nayeli

We're pretty happy with how Nayeli works as a tank. We simply reworked her health to match the new tanking/healing curve and reduced the difference in buffing/tanking between her two specializations so they can both be used depending on whether you need Nayeli to buff a bit more or take a few more hits before dying (this brings her general design closer to more recent heroes, whose specializations have a smaller impact on their overall power). We also added a new tank-specific formation ability to Nayeli to help her protect the group against AOE damage in later areas.

Calliope

Calliope's shields are quite powerful at delaying the death of tanks, especially under the new tanking/healing curves. As such, when a Champion is shielded by Calliope there is now a 15 second cooldown before they can be affected by her shield again. Calliope's ultimate overrides this limitation, and the shields still last until they are broken. College of Lore, instead of increasing the amount of her shields, now decreases the new cooldown by 5 seconds to 10 seconds total, meaning you can shield more often. The difference in subsequent upgrades between College of Valor and College of Lore has been removed, so that the two specializations are simply a choice between more frequent shields or slightly higher Bardic Inspiration buffs (this brings her general design closer to more recent heroes, whose specializations have a smaller impact on their overall power). Calliope emerges as a decent death delayer, and one of the few healer-types who can protect the majority of the formation from incidental damage.

Tyril

Tyril's original Wild Shape design was based around creating big damage shields for himself with his ultimate, allowing him to survive much longer than he otherwise would have. This design has been refined in the rework. His ultimate attack now does AOE damage, and the shield it generates is a percentage of his max health times the number of enemies he hit, with bonuses for enemies killed. Time his ultimate correctly and he can create a shield that will allow him to tank for an extended period of time. We've of course adjusted his health increases to match the new tanking/healing curve, though he'll only gain tank-level health in Wild Shape spec. Tyril is essentially two completely different Champions, depending on the spec you pick, so we've thrown some love at his Moonbeam spec as well and changed the way Moonbeam scales based on adjacent Champions. Moonbeam also has more, larger upgrades, making Tyril more competitive with Barrowin in more situations. His Moonbeam spec heal has also been rebalanced to match the new tanking/healing curves. Finally, Tyril's new "Forces of Good" ability ramps up the damage of your "Good" Champions when he's under attack or the enemies are enraging.

Arkhan

We wanted to use this opportunity to completely redesign Arkhan, morphing him into the bad-ass group-leading force of nature that he is in his tabletop appearances, and always was intended to be in our game. To that end, we've redesigned him with the idea of a "Tank DPS" in mind. We've removed nearly all of his existing abilities ("First in Line", "Loyalty", "Chango Unchained", "Chango Restrained") and replaced them with new ones. With "Rage of the Dragonborn," Arkhan's damage ramps up drastically when more enemies are attacking him by changing his attack to hit more and more enemies -- for example, Flame Breath becomes his basic attack when 16 or more enemies are targeting him! Through his brand new specializations, Arkhan's damage is increased in ways that no other Champions' are. "Bulk Up" increases the effect of formation abilities that target him, and "Usurped Power" causes positional formation abilities that target Champions adjacent to Arkhan to *also* target him, regardless of their normal restrictions. A new formation ability called "Rising Anger" increases the damage of evil Champions when Arkhan is under attack (go go Krond!). Finally, we've adjusted Arkhan's gear to better suit his new build, including giving him his very own Gold Find loot item. We hope that with these changes, Arkhan could conceivably be used to build some very interesting formations.

Event Champion Updates

Gromma

We like the *idea* of Gromma, she just needed some tweaking to get her numbers right. With her tough Tortle shell, she's tanky no matter which spec you pick, so she can fulfill the role of front-line support if the adventure or variant calls for it. We've pumped up her Grandmotherly Love ability to the extreme, so if your DPS is on the young-end of the spectrum, she's definitely worth considering for a buffing slot in your formation. We've also looked at each of her specializations and made some tweaks to each, focusing on her Tanking, Support, and DPS ability for Circle of the Mountain, Arctic, and Swamp respectively. Her tanking kit has been redesigned, with a completely new "Spiked Shell" mechanic, as well as other new formation abilities for buffing the party's health and the damage of neutral Champions while Gromma is under attack. We also threw a new formation ability into her Circle of the Swamp spec so that she can benefit from a portion of her Grandmotherly Love ability.

Barrowin

Barrowin's reign of terror over other buffing Champions is finally over. It was good while it lasted, but if you live by the hammer, you die by the hammer, and the nerf hammer has brought Barrowin's buffing ability back in line with other Champions. Blessed Hammer has had the way hammers stack adjusted. Instead of stacking multiplicatively with each other, each additional hammer provides a flat multiplier to the blessing: 1x for 1 hammer, 3x for 2 hammers, 7x for 3 hammers, and 15x for 4 hammers. This still provides for a 230,000%+ buff with 4 hammers at max level and with decent gear, but it's a far cry from the game breaking 1e15% buffs that the ability was providing before. To make up for the nerf, Barrowin's attack speed has been slightly lowered, increasing your chance to get an extra hammer stack once in a while, but in general her ability to buff has been brought more in line with other Champions in her seat. With her increased survivability when she's in the tank line, Barrowin is an excellent healing choice for formations with multiple front-line slots and a cluttered 2nd column. Her ultimate has also been redesigned to give your formation a quick boost of power and survivability whenever you desire.

Evelyn

Evelyn didn't require much maintenance. She's intended to be squishier than Nayeli or the other buffer tanks, but with more buffing potential. We added health upgrades to keep her in line with the new health/healing curve, and adjusted her upgrades to improve the scaling of her Divine Prayer buff effects.

Donaar

Donaar was designed just prior to most of the tanking and healing update being laid out, so his changes are minimal. Mostly just tweaks to his healing values to bring him in line with the new health curve.

As the Feast of the Moon approaches, the Champions descend into an infamous crypt in order to pay homage to their deeds.

What they find is a tomb of restless undead, raised by necromancy and gathering in the depths for some nefarious purpose...

Feast of the Moon 2 runs until Monday, November 26th at 12:00pm PST, introduces Vlahnya Um'Vairar, Eladrin Bard and Wizard, and also brings back Gromma Nander, the Tortle Druid!

New Champion: Vlahnya Um'Vairar

Fate Weaver, Spy mistress, New Olamn college of whispers instructor, Band Manager of Sirens of the Realms & Magic Missile, long time pal of Durnan. This noble looking Eladrin Elf has friends in high and low places. Her true origins are unknown though it is rumored she traveled across Faerȗn with a bard troupe and learned about the world one tavern at a time.

Vlahnya is a Support Champion, able to buff Champions in columns ahead of her with Enthralling Performance. The more harmonious the party, the greater the buff. When you want to add Vlahnya to your party, you can swap her with Delina (Slot 8).

Returning Champion: Gromma Nander

A wise Tortle matriarch, Gromma Nander is an elderly Circle of the Land Druid with nearly one hundred grandchildren. She has picked up many skills over her long life, and is able to fulfill DPS, support, or tanking roles in a formation. No matter her specialization, Gromma has a particular grandmotherly fondness for young members of any race, and will empower members of her party, with the youngest receiving the greatest boost.

Gromma is a versatile Tank and Support Champion. Her Druid Circle specializations offer different tanking options depending on the situation, while her Grandmotherly Love formation ability buffs your party, with the youngest Champions receiving the greatest benefit. When you want to add Gromma to your party, you can swap her with Nayeli (Slot 3).

Year Two Variants

Inevitable Betrayal — Skeletal warriors accompany you in your adventures through the crypt of legends. They take up 2 slots in the formation. While they are both 'alive' the champions deal 50% less damage.

Siren's Song — A doppelganger has taken on the guise of Vlahnya and is filling the crypt with dissonant tunes, waiting to destroy Vlahnya and take her place. Vlahnya starts the adventure in your party. This Doppel-Vlahnya appears in each area, stunning Champions, and only the true Vlahnya can deal damage to her until she reverts to her Doppelganger form.

Year One Variants

Respectful Restraint — Ultimate Attacks are disabled, and any attacks with a cooldown of 5 seconds or less have an additional 3 second cooldown (so a 4 second cooldown becomes 7 seconds, but a 6 second cooldown stays at 6 seconds). These lengthened attacks don't do any additional damage due to their longer cooldown.

The Relentless Undead — Undead monsters have their health doubled, and when they take a killing blow, they are stunned for 10 seconds before coming back to life (they still drop gold and quest items and count towards the quest each time they are killed).

A Grand Nandventure — Gromma Nander is forced to be in your formation. She starts at level 1 in your formation right away alongside Bruenor (or Deekin). Gromma cannot be removed from the formation or moved from her formation seat. She has a 4x damage boost and her normal attack cooldown is reduced by 2 seconds.

Today, we're going to go into detail on our newest Champion: Vlahnya Um'vairar, the Eladrin Bard/Wizard who runs the Sirens of the Realms.

Vlahnya will be available in our next Year Two Event, Feast of the Moon, which launches TODAY! I hope this blog will give you all you need to know about our latest champion. But don't forget that Feast of the Moon is also a chance to collect and gear up Gromma, the Tortle Druid who will be getting her annual tune-up in the upcoming tanking & healing update.

How you can unlock Vlahnya:

Vlahnya is unlocked by playing Feast of the Moon, a limited-time event launching on November 14th and running until November 26th. Once you unlock Vlahnya, she swaps with Delina, Hitch, or Nrakk (Slot 8)

Who is Vlahnya:

Fate Weaver, Spy mistress, New Olamn college of whispers instructor, Band Manager of Sirens of the Realms & Magic Missile, long time pal of Durnan. This noble looking Eladrin Elf has friends in high and low places. Her true origins are unknown though it is rumored she traveled across Faerûn with a bard troupe and learned about the world one tavern at a time.

Vlahnya's Design:

Anyone who has ever met Satine has more than likely been overwhelmed by how OP her Charisma stat is. When we saw her play as Vlahnya at the Stream of Many Eyes in June, we knew Vlahnya could be an awesome presence within the Champions. We reached out to Satine and she was over the moon excited about bringing Vlahnya to video game life.

As we do with any of our content creator Champions, we started our design by talking directly with Satine about who her character is at her core. Being the Band Manager of the Sirens of the Realms is one thing, but what sort of quirkiness could she bring to the champions? After an exciting conversation we landed on the idea that Vlahnya would take her role as leader seriously, staying back to debuff enemies and make sure the team was maximizing their capabilities.

Base Attack - Mage Hand: Vlahnya starts by using her custom mage hand to slap an enemy and try to distract them.

Formation Ability: Enthralling Performance: Vlahnya's main formation ability is a bit complicated, but it's a lot of fun to try to maximize! All Champions in the columns ahead of her increase their damage by 1% for each stack, based on the stacks of 3 notes that are above her head. Building a formation and strategy that can maximize all three stacks will help you push further!

Tempo Note: Tempo gains 4 stacks every time a Champion in the formation attacks.

Each of the stacks diminish 20% every 10 seconds and cap out at 300 stacks per note.

From left to right: Tempo, Bass, Treble; each note fill with a color as that note gains more stacks.

Formation Ability: Witch Slap: Vlahnya's Mage Hand now stuns an enemy when she attacks, in addition to dealing a bit of damage.

Vlahnya's Specializations:

Vlahnya's specializations are all about deciding whether she's focusing on being a solo artist, or getting the band back together.

Vlahnya's Ultimate Attack: Plane Shift

For Vlahnya's ultimate, we wanted to come up with something really unique. Something to fit her character. She has an Amulet of the Planes magic item, and who doesn't like a little Plane Shift fun?! When Vlahnya uses her ultimate, she fey steps into the middle of the fray, and Plane Shifts away with up to 10 non-boss enemies. A few seconds later she Plane Shifts back to her formation slot. Where did the baddies go? That's Vlahnya's secret! Note, that enemies that are Plane Shifted away do not drop gold, nor do they count towards quest objectives.

The ultimate is designed to help you clear the rabble away on boss levels or blocker levels to help your champions focus fire on their target.

Vlahnya's Equipment

Slot 1: Zither

Vlahnya's signature instrument increases the damage of all Champions.

Slot 2: Arpeegee

Get it?! Vlahnya's Familiar also increases the damage of all Champions.

Slot 3: Harp-Handled Dagger

Her dagger of choice increases the effectiveness of the Tempo note stacks of Enthralling Performance..

Slot 4: Crown

Her crown increases the effectiveness of the Bass note stacks of Enthralling Performance.

Slot 5: Amulet of the Planes

Her amulet increases the effectiveness of the Treble note stacks of Enthralling Performance.

Slot 6: Cloak

Her cloak reduces the cooldown of her ultimate attack.

What about any other Vlahnya details I'm looking for?

Vlahnya is Neutral Good. She currently does not have an affiliation, and her stats are as follows:
Str: 8 Dex: 14 Con: 10 Int: 14 Wis: 14 Cha: 16

TL/DR- Final Vlahnya Thoughts

Vlahnya is a master spy, and a strong leader. She'll increase the damage of those in front of her in the formation based on how well your formation is doing in 3 areas: the speed of your attackers, how often those around Vlahnya are dealing killing blows to enemies, and how often you are picking up gold goobers.

After thwarting a pair of plots to kidnap and kill lords of Waterdeep, the Champions are presented with a new challenge: homeownership!

The scholar Volothamp Geddarm has gifted the party with the title to Trollskull Manor, an aging estate located in Trollskull Alley in the North Ward of Waterdeep.

What Volo neglected to mention, however, is that the manor itself is already occupied...

Note: you will need to have completed the previous two Dragon Heist Adventures, A Dinner Party and A Botched Kidnapping, in order to access these new Adventures.

Trollskull Manor

The Champions have been given the title to a house in Trollskull Alley, the aptly-named Trollskull Manor. However, it looks like some unwanted guests have taken up residence inside — time to kick them out!

Variant: The Gargoyle's Apprentice — All the activity within Trollskull Manor has activated a long forgotten spell cast by one of Ulkoria's students, awakening her cleaning objects to help prep the manor for residents again!

Attack on the Manor

After the Champions finish cleaning up their new base of operations, an explosion in Trollskull Alley brings chaos right to their doorstep.

Variant: The Trepidatious Trio — Nat, Squiddly, and Jenks tag along to help the Champions. They take up three slots in the formation and do no damage.